Murders of ISIS and Captives of Banu Qurayza

20 February 2018

ISIS justifies their violent acts by misusing the verses of the Qur’an and narrations of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). They quote part of the verse at-Tawbah 9:5 “…kill them wherever you find them” by dividing the sentence and taking the expression out of its context. They also say that enslaving women is written in Islamic jurisprudence books. In the article below, you can see what is written in the Qur’an about enslaving women:http://www.islamandquran.org/research/battle-captives-and-concubinage.html

Furthermore, they allege that the Messenger of God (pbuh) also had done the same thing for Madinan Jewish tribe Bani Quraiza. According to the allegations of ISIS:“The number of Bani Quraiza captives was around 900. They were killed the same way ISIS killed people these days, and their women had been enslaved and sold at bazaars.”

Pay attention please! We are not talking about an ordinary murder but being killed like sheep, being held from their hairs and their throats being slain. Unfortunately, the very same narration takes its place in Muslim historical books. But how true is it? We will see this:

Madina is a big city in which there had been two major Arabic tribes named Aws and Hazraj. According to damous historian Muhammad Hamidiullah, there had been 20 small Jewish tribes. The majors of them were; Nadir, Kaynuka and Quraiza. When the Messenger of God (pbuh) had immigrated to Madina, He had made an agreement with all of them; the Jews and Arabs. It is callled “Madina Agreement”. They made an agreement on many articles and said, “Madina belongs to all of us, we live here, if there is an attack to our city from out of Madina, we will fight all together to defend it.”.

However, during the Battle of Trenches, Bani Quraiza helped the Meccan polytheists, instead of defending the city. This is also stated in the Qur’an.

Let us see the principles in the Qur’an about fighting against non-Muslims. In surah Mumtahina there are three red lines which justify battling against non-Muslims. Muslims can battle agianst the non-Muslims only if non-Muslims overstep these bounds:

1)if they start a war against Muslims because of their religion.

2)if they drive Muslims out from their homeland.

3)if they support the people who drive Muslims out from their land.

If anyone commits one of these, he would have committed a war crime and Muslims can start war against them according to this verse.

Hence, Bani Quraiza had committed the third crime and Rasulullah (pbuh) started war against Quraiza after the Battle of Trenches.

In Islamic history books it is related as follows:

“They could not dare fight against Muslims, they feared and they accepted the arbitration of Sad b. Muaz, who had been their ally before the migration of Messenger Muhammad (pbuh). Finally Sad b. Muaz decides that all men who can fight among them must be killed. According to the narration, they accepts this decision. The number of them was 40 according to one narration, or between 600-800 according to another more popular narration, or at most 900. Those men had been taken from their castle, brought to Madina and imprisoned in one house. Later, they were taken to marketplace and the pick and shovel were given to them to dig their own graves. And then Ali and Zubair b Avvam were appointed to kill those 900 men, using the same method ISIS does today.”

The source of this narration is only one person: It is Ibn Ishaq, and after him his student Ibn Hisham; and after him the narration spreads. After the compilation of Hadiths, these narrations took place in hadith books like Bukhari or Muslim and others in different forms.

There is no narration by the Companions of Muhammad (pbuh). This is the first vital point, because such a dramatic incident would have been told more than one person, especially by the Companions, had it really occured.

The other one is Muhammad Hamidullah who is the most famous historian in History of Islam, says: “At all wars of the Messenger Muhammad (pbuh), the names of the people who died and killed are known and stated by name. How many non-Muslims were killed at Badr, Uhud, Trenches, Khaibar? All of them are clear with names and dates. And the number is 250 in total. Rasulullah (pbuh) lives 10 years after his immigration and the number of killed non muslim is 250. But the claim is 900 in one incident only!”

By the way, this event happened at the market place and there is no Companion to narrate it!!!

Moreover, he says, “Jews record all this kind of important events . For instance, ‘In Jerusalem there had been an attack by Romans, we lost this number people, it happened like that…, etc.’ Babylon and the others as well. Although all these events were recorded in Jewish history, they did not refer to this incident anywhere. This is really interresting.”

And also according to the narration, their wives and children were brought to a place called Najd and some of them remained at Madina. Imagine that, this event came true, would you be able to forget? Neither Jews nor Muslims could forget this. Yet, it had not been mentioned anywhere.

Also, there is no narration in book of Imam Malik who gives us the most strong narrations related to Madina period. Imam Malik says in his book about Ibn Ishaq, “None of the narrations he tells about Jews has basis, or is reliable . This man is a devil from among devils!”. Hisham ibn Urwa, who is comtemporary of Imam Malik, also rejects the narrations of Ibn Ishaq, and calls him liar.

Although the most reliable two contemporary scholars of Ibn Ishaq do not take the narration he tells without a narration chain (sanad), next generation scholars take this narration into their books and spread it. Therefore, this narrations was assumed to be true, and came to our day and age without even being criticized. Though it is baseless and can not even be considered as “hadith” from the viewpoint of hadith science.